


Steps

by lemonsharks



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff without Plot, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Presents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7135775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in love is like tripping over your own two feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steps

Dagna does not _sneak_ into Sera’s room; she’s invited every time. But she _does_ pay attention. Soft bolts of cloth, portraits leaning askew against the walls, books and candles and shiny rocks. Obsidian chips and smooth-worn agates in swirling red and white. She has a bowl of them, a jar of sand in layers of crisp white and bright red, mimicking the stones. Soft pinks and blues and golds.

They talk. Sera _talks_ , once she figures out that Dagna isn’t going _away_. Or, that she’s coming back. That first night they eat their way through three quarters of a nug and a steaming platter of roasted potatoes and squash, and a pie at the end, while Dagna asks every question she can think of about Sera’s alchemy.

It’s _like_ magic but also _unlike_ magic--mixing infusions and oils that change when they meet the air, turn to frost or fire or the crackle of lightning. 

“How’d you first learn?” Dagna asks, around a spoonful of pie. 

“Dunno, really. Just started _mixing_. Well. A Friend got into this noble tit’s workshop and found a bunch of flasks and stuff. So I got to start with that. But after, it was all trying to see what worked and what didn’t.”

Sera raises her left arm and pulls down her sleeve; a wide scar twists around the limb. “That one was shit. Flask broke before I was ready.”

But Lavellan whisks her off to the Winter Palace not long after and Dagna’s left alone--not alone, there are plenty of people for company, but none of them are _Sera_. She knows she likes pretty things but not _enchanted_ things, she knows she likes reds and golds and pinks and blues and agates, and working stone comes second only to working metal for a Smith Caste girl. 

_Flowers_ , she decides. _Flowers are pretty_ , and, _Sera’s pretty, too_. That’s a thought she doesn’t dwell on. She forms stems Navarrite wire and leaves from veridium, shining iridescent pink and purple and green in the soft light of the Undercroft. She hammers with a lightest touch, and shapes the veins on the leaves with a stylus. The flowers are blue-white agate, scraped from solid fist-sized chunks she finds in the river down below the undercroft, shaking with cold. She turns them into trumpet-shapes, crystal grace with delicate edges and carnelian centers. 

It takes three weeks. 

The Inquisitor keeps them in Orlais for five, Sera and Iron Bull and Dorian, and then a side trip into the Hissing Wastes; she _likes_ Mahanon, he’s a decent man and _funny_ , but. The flowers sit on the barrel outside Sera’s room for far too long. She has to stop and _dust_ them when she hears the party is finally coming home. Her heart flutters in her chest and she wants both to lurk outside Sera’ door and wait for Sera to come find _her_ even though she knows her friend--

A friend now? Only a friend? Something more? 

\--that _Sera_ will be caught up in meetings and debriefings for _hours_. 

(“ _Debriefing_ , yeah? Sounds like--oh, never _mind_.)

She takes a seat in the tavern, by the Chargers’ first lieutenant, standing on his chair watching the bard with wide, nug-love eyes. Krem doesn’t mind her there, and they talk sometimes, but he’s good to sit with when you don’t _really_ want to talk, too. 

“You like her,” Dagna says, after a while. She’s had two cups of ale flavored with sarsaparilla. Krem sighs deeply. 

“I’d like it more if she _didn’t_ make me feel like I was fifteen years old and tripping over my own feet.”

“I’ll drink to _that,_ ” Dagna says. 

They raise their mugs, and when Sera comes in and tromps up the stairs Dagna’s face is hidden behind her drink. 

She’s a storm of muttering, slammed doors and curses at royals and nobles and spies. Mahanon jogs in not long after, stomps up after her. Their conversation is intense and hushed and above it the words, _“People died! Good people! Died, Herald!”_

Sera’s door shuts, and stays that way for a long time--even after the Inquisitor slinks back down the stairs and out the front door of the tavern, muttering. 

_She didn’t notice the flowers_ , Dagna thinks, and excuses herself to go back to her quarters. 

The Undercroft is too big and too hollow the next day, and none of her runes sit right in her hands, the enchantments of them just a little _off_. They aren’t _right_. She picks up a ruined runestone and flings it out into the waterfall with a guttural sound low in her throat. 

She didn’t _notice_. Dagna wipes at her eyes with the heel of her hand and gets back to work on the next rune. She’s angry, yes, though mostly at herself--and hurt, too. Because the plan was that Sera would go back to her room and see her gift and come looking for the person who left it immediately, not spend an afternoon shooting arrows at her door while while Dagna simmered in her own inward loathing. 

_It was silly_ , she thinks, and, _I probably should’ve just got her actual flowers_. 

There is a very nice embrium growing in the Skyhold garden, and she’s seen Embrium in Sera’s room before. 

The runestone _snaps in half_ between her fingers and Dagna _can’t_ today, she just can’t. She gathers up her tools and pleads headache, telling Harritt she’s going to head back up to her quarters to lie down in a quiet dark room for a while. It’s not _all_ a lie. 

_Why do I_ like _her so much? I don’t even really_ know her _that well!_

She makes it to the garden with hands tucked into her pockets and halfway up the flight of stairs by the small Chantry and the storage room their new witch won’t let anyone near. She _remembers_ Morrigan, remembers her arguing with the Hero of Ferelden that they didn’t have _time_ to go back to the Circle, and keeps her distance. It’s one more reminder that nothing gets to be easy. 

And halfway up the stairs, the sound of running feet slapping the cobblestones distracts her. 

“Wait up, you!” Sera calls, and Dagna turns.

She has an armful of stone flowers in one arm, and she’s waving the other wildly above her head. Dagna’s eyes well, and she blinks back emotion that threatens to overwhelm her right there on the stairs. 

“Did you bring me these?” Sera asks, holding out the offending bouquet. “Regular flowers wilt and die and go all moldy. _These_ don’t. Might tarnish, though. I don’t care. Why?”

The thing she wants to say is: _because I like you, because I want to spend more time with you, because I think we could be something really amazing together_. The thing she actually _says_ , is, “I made them for you. Do you like them?”

“ _Like_ them, what are you, daft? They’re _perfect_! Whaddyou mean you _made_ them?”

Dagna tells her, from the idea of them to the pinch in her chest when she left with the Inquisitor for Halamshiral, quiet nights spent alone with stone and metal. She does _not_ mention how Sera came home. 

“You should’ve _told_ me,” she says, “It’s not like I can see inside your head. That’d be weird. And creepy.”

_We’re the same height Sera three steps down,_ Dagna realizes. They’re so _close_. She leans in, and suddenly she’s _very_ dizzy, because Sera is _very_ close. She drops the hand with the flowers, holding them just-away from her body and takes Dagna’s hand with her free one. It’s easy, warm, and Dagna touches her cheek with her free hand and kisses her. 

Bright sparks, hot metal, the smell of alchemy clinging to her hair, and Dagna doesn’t want to pull away. Sera’s the one who steps back and licks her lips. 

“Right,” she says, “What was that?”

“A kiss, I think.”

Sera rolls her eyes, “I know _that_ part, what I mean is--”

“--Why?”

“Yeah.”

Dagna shrugs. Her word bubble up and stick in her throat, suddenly swollen and hard to work. Finally, she manages, “I like you a lot. Not just because you’re interesting. You _are_ interesting, but--”

“--You’re really cute,” Sera says. 

Dagna blushes. 

“And I’m gonna … go. Think. About this.”

“Sera?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re really cute, too.” 


End file.
